1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing system, a progress display processing method, a computer readable program storage medium and a program in which a management server and a plurality of processing devices for performing different printing processes can be communicated.
2. Related Background Art
These days, on the market dealing with large amounts of copies or jobs, called a print on demand (POD), there are increasing cases of employing a digital print, instead of printing, to perform the print process, in which digitalization is more merged than in the conventional printing industry, and the computer management and control have spread and approached a certain level of the printing industry, using the computer.
Also, there is a service called a Fulfillment, which collectively executes all the affairs from placing or accepting an order for merchandise in the database marketing such as a mail order sale to packing, delivery, after-service, inventory management and payment management.
Moreover, a centralized management system called an MIS (Management Information System) supports the corporate planning and management affairs through collection, processing and report of production related data and accumulates the information to provide it to the required station, when needed. And this management information system supports the service of Fulfillment, employing a format called JDF (Job Definition Format), as means of communication as defined in the activities of an organization called CIP4 (International Cooperation For Integration of Processes in Pre-press, Press and Post-press).
On the other hand, the internet has come to the age of broad band, and a service called an ASP (Application Service Provider) market has appeared and may be linked with the POD market in the future.
However, in the consumer environments, the small scale offices especially for small-to-medium-sized enterprises do not afford to purchase the multi-functional MFP's. There are many cases where the action of printing or ordering is not taken immediately due to high threshold as the actual problem, even though there is a demand for creating a bound brochure, a print with plate, a large amount of prints in short term, or a direct mail.
Also, in the print market for producing a catalogue, a pamphlet or a book with the above system, it is common as a work form to create the original data through a desk-top publishing for editing the print original with the computer, print the data, and make a post-process including cutting and bookbinding in recent years.
In recent years, there have been offered several print operation management schemes such as a management information system (MIS) for managing a series of works associated with the printing using the computer to reduce the cost and improve the productivity, a job definition format (JDF) describing the process content in each print operation, and CIP4 defining the information passed between devices in charge of each print operation.
For example, a print job brought into the print dealer is managed by the management information system, the operator decides the process to be performed in each of an RIP operation for generating the image data to be printed, a print operation for printing the image on the paper and a bookbinding operation for cutting and bookbinding, defines the process content of each operation in JDF, and transmits the defined process content to the device in charge of each operation, and each device performs the process of operation in accordance with the transmitted process content, whereby a series of print operations are managed, as already disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-036162 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-047710.
Particularly, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-036162 is concerned with a system for supporting the production of printed matter in which a plurality of participants are involved.
In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-036162, an example was described in which the management of print operation is performed by a server on the internet, a work flow is defined in a printed matted production work, and the device in charge of each operation performs the process of operation in accordance with the definitions.
Also, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-047710, a graphical user interface for providing a job ticket or the print job information regarding the print system was described in which the state information of each device is acquired by communicating with each resource or device and the state of device is displayed clearly, indicating whether or not there are plenty of resources involving the print operation, for example, there is enough toner for printer, or there is no problem in the condition of a finisher making the bookbinding process.
However, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-036162, it is possible to input the processing information of each print operation, but difficult to display the state of device in charge of each operation clearly.
Also, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-047710, it is possible to display the state of each device, but not possible to visually display the pre- and post-operations in the print operation of each device, whereby the manager can not grasp the job status dynamically.
Therefore, as the overall system, there is a problem that the operator who operates the device in charge of the process of each operation, which is processed separately and independently, can not grasp the schedule progress status, such as how long another time it takes to complete the pre-operation, or whether or not the post-operation can accept the next job immediately.
And the operator of each device can not judge whether or not the adjustment work of device or another job with lower priority can be performed ahead, whereby it is difficult to improve the overall work efficiency.